“Army Jeep Driven By Woman Scuttles Up City Hall Steps,” Toronto Star. February 27, 1942. Page 3.
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LUCKY LUXTON AND STAFF SERGEANT MAGEE
A dun-colored bundle of close-knit horsepower scuttled up the steps of the city hall, did a U-turn on the speakers’ platform, jitter-bugged down again, whisked about the cenotaph and braked to a sudden stop.
‘It’s a jeep,’ said someone in the crowd who stopped to watch.
‘That’s a girl,’ chorused others as the khaki-clad driver turned down the collar of her sheepskin-lined coat.
For half an hour the bantam scout car, expertly handled by Driver ‘Lucky’ Luxton of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, demonstrated the qualities which make it the army’s favorite reconnaissance vehicle. It climbed the steps forward and backward, came down sidewise, turned on a dime, took off like a startled antelope, took curbs and bumps in its stride.
‘Just a rehearsal,’ was the explanation of Staff Sergt. Charles Magee, who rode beside the driver. ‘She’s going to put on a real performance when they raise the Victory Loan thermometer.
‘For any driving job requiring skill and nerve, they can’t choose better than ‘Lucky,’ Magee added. The Detroit girl, daughter of a Michigan state policeman, before the war was a professional motor-cycle rider and has thrilled crowds at the C.N.E. Two months before the C.W.A.C. was organizd she came to Toronto to join the women’s army. To fill in time while she waited, she got a job in a downtown garage.
For the past 10 days, ‘Lucky’ has ben the only girl in a mechanized cavalcade of Canadian and U.S. troupes which toured Ontario to boost the Victory Loan. ‘She did a swell job,’ said Magee.
Willys Jeep Convertible Cargo-Personnel Carrier, 1958. One of Willy's proposals to the US Army for a vehicle to replace the Jeep. This was a predecessor of the Willys Jeep XM443E1 project of 1959 but neither were adopted by the army
“At night he grieved in his bunk. I would lie there in the darkness and listen as he quietly moaned from down in his heart. After a while, I would climb down and sit on the side of his bunk. I’d tell him jokes and stories until he began to feel a little better and could fall asleep. When I climbed back in my bunk I made it my goal to keep Elvis laughing all way across the ocean…”
Charlie Hodge and his devotion to keeping a smile on Elvis’s face >> 🥹
Before picking up my dad at the airport in San Juan this afternoon, Mom and I decided to kill some time at the mall, Plaza Las Americas. I got in some snapshots of all these cars. A car show may had been going on at Plaza Las Americas. As of now, we’re on the other side of the island near Isabela and Aguadilla.